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A New Jersey synagogue has abandoned its plans to build a new home in the Bucks County town of Langhorne, and instead has bought an existing church in nearby Newtown, eschewing a potential, and perhaps lengthy, legal battle in favor of a far less complicated relocation. Congregation Brothers of Israel, a 123-year-old Conservative Congregation in Trenton, N.J., won a zoning...

At the religious school at Shir Ami-Bucks County Jewish Congregation in Newtown, Rabbi Eric Goldberg is trying to give his students a visceral connection to Israel by using something familiar to many of them -- dogs. At every class meeting, the children have been asked to bring in a donation for a tzedakah project supporting Pups for Peace, an organization...

It's an age-old question: What does practicing religion have to do with being a good, ethical person? While working to formulate his own personal theology as a seminary student in the 1970s, Rabbi Ira F. Stone himself struggled with the notion of whether observing Judaism's commandments in itself leads to ethical behavior. "The Judaism I encountered up until that point...

A class held on Sunday mornings at the religious school of Kesher Israel Congregation in West Chester is filling a long unmet need in the community. Aptly named Kolot B'Simcha ("Voices of Happiness"), it was created for Jewish residents of the Chester County region whose special needs are such that they could not be mainstreamed into a synagogue classroom. For...

After 15 years of renting a building in Old City, Congregation Beth Ahavah will no longer have a space of its own, but instead will be housed at Congregation Rodeph Shalom's historic home on North Broad Street. Members insist that the upcoming move does not mean the end of a distinct community that serves gay and lesbian Jews. "This was...